9. Installing Necessary System Tools

Some tools are missing from the stage3 archive because several packages
provide the same functionality. It is now up to you to choose which ones you
want to install.

The first tool you need to decide on has to provide logging facilities for your
system. Unix and Linux have an excellent history of logging capabilities -- if
you want you can log everything that happens on your system in logfiles. This
happens through the system logger.

Gentoo offers several system loggers to choose from. There are sysklogd,
which is the traditional set of system logging daemons, syslog-ng, an
advanced system logger, and metalog which is a highly-configurable
system logger. Others might be available through Portage as well - our number of
available packages increases on a daily basis.

If you plan on using sysklogd or syslog-ng you might want to
install logrotate afterwards as those system loggers don't provide any
rotation mechanism for the log files.

To install the system logger of your choice, emerge it and have it added
to the default runlevel using rc-update. The following example installs
syslog-ng. Of course substitute with your system logger:

Code Listing 1.1: Installing a system logger

# emerge syslog-ng
# rc-update add syslog-ng default

9.b. Optional: Cron Daemon

Next is the cron daemon. Although it is optional and not required for your
system, it is wise to install one. But what is a cron daemon? A cron daemon
executes scheduled commands. It is very handy if you need to execute some
command regularly (for instance daily, weekly or monthly).

We only provide vixie-cron for networkless installations. If you want
another cron daemon you can wait and install it later on.

Code Listing 2.1: Installing a cron daemon

# emerge vixie-cron
# rc-update add vixie-cron default

9.c. Optional: File Indexing

If you want to index your system's files so you are able to quickly
locate them using the locate tool, you need to install
sys-apps/slocate.

Code Listing 3.1: Installing slocate

# emerge slocate

9.d. File System Tools

Depending on what file systems you are using, you need to install the necessary
file system utilities (for checking the filesystem integrity, creating
additional file systems etc.).

The following table lists the tools you need to install if you use a certain
file system. Not all filesystems are available for each and every architecture
though.

File System

Tool

Install Command

XFS

xfsprogs

emerge xfsprogs

ReiserFS

reiserfsprogs

emerge reiserfsprogs

JFS

jfsutils

emerge jfsutils

If you are an EVMS user, you need to install emvs:

Code Listing 4.1: Installing EVMS utilities

# USE="-gtk" emerge evms

The USE="-gtk" will prevent the installation of dependencies. If you
want to enable the evms graphical tools, you can recompile evms
later on.

If you don't require any additional networking-related tools (such as rp-pppoe
or a dhcp client) continue with Configuring the
Bootloader.

If you require Gentoo to automatically obtain an IP address for your network
interface(s), you need to install dhcpcd (or any other DHCP Client)
on your system. If you don't do this now, you might not be able to connect
to the internet after the installation!

The USE="-X" will prohibit xorg-x11 to be installed as a dependency
(rp-pppoe has graphical tools; if you want those enabled, you can
recompile rp-pppoe later on or have xorg-x11 installed now -- which takes a
long time to compile).

If you are using SCSI RAID on a POWER5-based system, you should consider
installing the iprutils which will allow you to work with the RAID disk
array, get status on the disks in the arrays, and update microcode among other
functions.